Matty

Even if he were not listed in the titles, you could guess who originated the basis of this film (Tennessee Williams) – the stifling American South, a few characters, a small space and intolerable sexual tension. At least that is how the excellent first two-thirds appear. Cinematographer James Wong Howe’s camera work with tremendous depth of field and no visual frills is maximally focused on the characters. The actors themselves reveal the other layers of the complex characters through type-specific casting and more convincingly in minor gestures than through grand performances (which is true of Natalie wood in general). In the final third, the “many cocks in one ring” model is broken and replaced by a sweetish romance with a load of hollow scenes that serve merely to push the film toward its inevitable climax. Of the topics addressed in the introduction, only the Elektra complex is brought to the point, though somewhat unsatisfyingly. The weakness of men and amusement had at the expense of the wealthy are no longer dealt with. Nevertheless, the film gives a hint of extraordinary sensitivity to the seemingly banal substance of relationships, at which director Sydney Pollack later excelled. 70%

Twelve years after On the Waterfront (from the same producer), Marlon Brando stubbornly refuses to abandon his strict moral principles, even at the cost of broken ribs and knocked-out teeth. As one of the first artists of the new generation of filmmakers, Arthur Penn knew when and how to use brutal violence in a film in order to deglorify it. The violence in The Chase has a dual purpose: cathartic and revelatory. After getting punched between the eyes, the existing pretence loses significance. You can hardly express your point of view more clearly. The fictional American town in the film serves as a pressure cooker, under the lid of which the most burning problems of America at that time – racial tension, consumerism, street violence, distrust of the authorities – are brought to the boiling point. With its stellar cast, the impressiveness of this adaptation of the theatrical play is diminished by the cramming of so many questions with an exclamation mark into such a small space in such a short period of time (a single night). Plausibility yields to urgent, though in no way soulless moralising. With the exception of the present-absent Redford, none of the countless characters is clearly drawn. The significance of each of them in the gradually assembled mosaic is not clear. Some only appear, graphically demonstrate one of the pathological symptoms of the mood of society and then disappear. The film lacks a more regular rhythm and, instead of continuously escalating tension, approaches its climax relatively suddenly. It is thus much slower than its title suggests. For the most part, responsibility for these shortcomings lies at feet of the studio, which took the work out of the hands of the novice director and edited the film into its own image. Penn was not happy. The loss of control angered him to such a degree that he decided to make his next film from start to finish based on his own ideas, resulting in the cult revisionist gangster flick Bonnie and Clyde. At least in that case, anger brought about something good. 75%

I felt as uncomfortable watching the new Lion King as I would have felt watching natural history documentaries with narration that jokingly imitates the “voices” of animals. At the same time, it is an inordinately long (and drawn-out) film, very dark (the hyenas could sign up for a horror-movie casting call) and verbose, i.e. not very suitable for younger viewers who would most likely appreciate the talking fauna. I very much enjoyed Caleb Deschanel’s camera work, which was adapted to the characters’ point of view, and one wordless scene including the odyssey of a dung beetle with a ball of giraffe droppings. Otherwise, a negative feeling of inappropriateness predominated. When you see a photo-realistically animated (and talking) warthog and a (talking) meerkat tame a (talking) lion cub and turn it into an entomophage, it is more disturbing than funny or cute. Whereas I can still be impressed by the original to this day, the reboot just makes me want to cry over the idea that it will be a huge commercial hit and Disney will continue to churn out such empty, asexual, absolutely unsurprising remakes of its successful films. The Jungle Book had a faster pace and more convincing characters, and it did not merely copy the original film, but developed it in a meaningful manner. It was unique in some way. Conversely, The Lion King is only a soulless imitation, perhaps technologically perfect, but almost worthless artistically. 50%

Fashion hell done a little differently. What makes In Fabric an exclusive film is also its biggest weakness. Events do not develop, but rather repeat with the regularity of rituals (which surrealists love so much). Sheila returns to the department store, whose staff try to charm her with baroquely elaborate phrases. She goes on dates via ads. She learns details of her son’s love live. Again and again, without anything going anywhere or so that we better learn the past of dresses that cause washing machines to commit suicide or, as the case may be, we understand the bizarre laws of this fictional world, which gives the impression of being simultaneously modern and archaic. Thanks to tactile imaging of surfaces, clever work with colours and the use of avant-garde stylistic elements (e.g. overlapping shots during a love scene, when not only bodies but also layers of the image intertwine), it is seductive and intoxicating, but that is not enough for a feature-length film. Therefore, at the midpoint of the film, an unexpected change occurs, followed by a variation not of a particular situation, but of the whole first hour of the story (stylistically reminiscent of British social dramas rather than giallo films). Instead of strengthening the atmosphere, the film turns to disintegrates. It loses its momentum and cohesion, and is no longer able to say much of anything new about the central theme of capitalistic fetishisation of merchandise, to which we attribute magical properties under the influence of marketing. Throughout its runtime, In Fabric is a very stylish, likably exaggerated affair that is difficult to compare to anything else in contemporary art cinema, but next time I would prefer to see one excellent film than two passable stories. 70%

Shot in Serbia, this American film, two-thirds of which is set in the basement of an old house, is better than average. Despite its B-movie subject matter, it does not look cheap and offers very solid CGI with animals that do not appear to be digitally generated. Starting with the opening credits, director Alexandre Aja does not squander a single minute and constantly portions out information about the characters and the relationships between them, which later proves to be opportune (almost all of the characters and objects encountered by the female protagonist during the brisk exposition are utilised just as economically). The protagonists are not just walking hunks of meat for the alligators. We understand their motivations and cheer them on, and we comprehend where, despite all of the scars, they find in themselves the strength to grit their teeth and face danger. The overcoming of family trauma is skilfully connected with the eco-horror plot also thanks to the fact that the house where most of the events take place brings the heroine’s childhood, and thus her father’s failure, to light. Its flooding with water (thanks to which Halley can show what works best for her) and its gradual disintegration thus represents an inevitable part of “family therapy”. It is true that the story faulters during longer dialogues, the characters are far too clichéd and, given the R-rating, I would have expected more scenes in which alligators tear people to pieces, but when it reminds us in its entertaining and undemanding way that if we want to survive, we should mainly respect nature, then it works nicely. 65%

Kapadia constructed Senna on a confrontation between the famous race driver and his nemesis Alain Prost, who was the opposite of him in terms of personal character. Maradona is also a film about the clash of two personalities. This time, however, the two personalities are those of a single person. In one of the off-screen comments, coach Fernando Signorini points out the duality of the football legend. He speaks of the incongruity between the shy “mama’s boy” from the slums (Diego) and the monster born of a desire for success (Maradona). According to Signorini, Maradona was originally just a mask that the football player wore in front of journalists, whom he despised. With proliferating scandals (drug dependency, disqualification, love affairs), mask and his real self began to merge. Kapadia seems to have too readily accepted this interpretation. Thanks to the above-mentioned concept, however, the film, with a runtime of more than two hours, is held together by one central motif, which contributes to its dynamics, as it creates tension between Diego and Maradona by alternating between situations revealing different layers of the subject’s personality. ___ As in the case of Senna and Amy, Kapadia further managed to find in the man’s life story universal themes (betrayal, forgiveness, redemption, seeking his place in the world) with which even those who have never played football, taken drugs or made friends with Neapolitan mobsters can identify. ___ I also appreciated how Maradona’s story is set in the broader socio-political and economic context of the time. Argentina’s football victory over England is presented as revenge for the Falklands War. Through Maradona’s cocaine addiction, the film reveals how Naples was plagued by crime syndicates that legitimised their activities with the help of media celebrities. The documentary pays a great deal of attention to the issue of national pride inspired by football and identification with a particular club. When, for example, Maradona played against Italy, he tried to defend his “betrayal” by saying that Naples was not Italy, but rather an outsider state in a country fighting for its place in sun (just as he, a poor boy from the fringes of society, had done). He based that on his awareness of the strong animosity between the Italian north and south. ___ Diego Maradona is fascinating especially due to the way in which Kapadia and his collaborators were able, for the third time, to assemble hundreds and hundreds of hours of archival material into a compact, thematically rich form. Antonia Pinta’s soundtrack, into which the sounds of falls, screams and kicks of the ball are inventively incorporated, also contributes significantly to the flow of the narrative, thanks to which the film offers not only an abundance of information, but also a more bountiful experience than many dramas made primarily for the purpose of stirring emotions. 75%

The Dead Don’t Die is a slow, hipster zombie satire based on repetition of the same jokes and situations which constantly makes fun of the fact that it is a slow, hipster satire based on repetition of the same jokes and situations. It sometimes works very well, sometimes not so much. In the context of Jim Jarmusch’s earlier genre deconstructions, the film is inspiring (not only are genre conventions exaggerated, but are also commented upon by the actors, who step out of their roles and express their opinions on the screenplay) thanks to a cast that has superbly mastered deadpan humor and numerous references to (Romero’s) zombie horror movies and other old films (a headstone with the name Samuel Fuller inscribed on it) and it is fairly entertaining throughout its running time. The film is neither a summer hit nor the peak of Jarmusch’s filmography (it is sloppy especially visually and in the interconnection/variation of individual motifs), where The Dead is found in the paradoxical position of a film that is simultaneously his least and most serious work (the planet is in a state of decay and in order for it to regain its balance, humans will have to get out of the way), but I rather imagine it is not the absolute failure that the responses from Cannes warned against. 75%

It is a nice idea, but also improbable (would the Beatles and their love songs be as relevant in the current cynical times as they were in the 1960s?) and by no means original (Yesterday essentially just develops an idea from Back to the Future). Execrable processing. The film is merely a terribly haphazardly designed rack upon which to hang Beatles songs, with cheap jokes (the renaming of “Hey Jude” to “Hey Dude”), an unconvincing romantic storyline, impossibly written female characters (a problem with all of Richard Curtis’s screenplays) and a protagonist who achieves everything (and does not lose anything significant) though fraud. A prefabricated crowd pleaser without spark, wit, visual inventiveness or a single real emotion, which in forced dialogue only presents ready-made truths and does not allow the viewer to discover anything or be amazed. It also does a disservice to some of the best songs in history. In fact, the film works with those songs in completely the same way as the caricature of the greedy music manager that Kate McKinnon came up with – like products from which it is necessary to wring as much money as possible. 50%

The post-war visual culture in Western countries (particularly period television commercials and magazine ads) created the illusion that a woman considered home and housework to be the absolute expression of her personality. The happiness of the image promoting this distribution of power is subverted when the emptiness of repetitive domestic activities and the transformation of women into easily replaceable goods are pointed out and certain visual clichés in the representation of women and familial happiness are highlighted to the verge of parody. Whereas the popular media convinced women that happiness consists in love, marriage, motherhood and taking care of the household, Varda warns against the possible tragic consequences of such simplistic thinking, depriving women of their individuality and self-worth not derived from their relationships with others. Happiness is not an automatic by-product of the adoption of a certain model of cohabitation and it definitely cannot be bought, nor can it be multiplied by increasing the sources of our pleasure (women, for example). Varda communicates this viewpoint, which is relatively critical of the logic of consumer society, so subtly (and particularly through the utilised stylistic techniques rather than in the dialogue) that many did not grasp the film’s ironic nature and conversely perceived it as an attack on women’s emancipation. From the director’s previous and subsequent work and from her many statements, however, it is obvious that she was never really an advocate for the traditional (bourgeois) model of familial happiness and the subordinate role of women. 80%

“Isn’t that Columbo?” Informed by the European film avant-garde, Wim Wenders for once suppressed his admiration for American culture and, with an ignorant child’s astonishment at the world, set out into the streets of his homeland's capital. He lets himself be enchanted along with us. We hear what the angels hear, we see what Henri Alekan’s heavenly camera captures. But we can't touch. We are everywhere, we are nowhere. We are spectators. How can respect for cinema be expressed more kindly? (Who does an angel ask to tell him about the world? A film actor, naturally.) Sound replaces unattainable touches, surrounding and absorbing us, taking us by the hand and leading us. Illusory touches accompany us, and we are called to real touches. Find your own angel, or look with different eyes at the one under whose wings you are already hiding. 85%